Monday, November 18, 2013

FTM2014 - Thought about Shaky Leaves - Status

This project had turned into a great study for a presentation that I have done several times in the past and am scheduled to give in in 2014. I great opportunity to sharpen my (limited) skills and to update the presentation at the same time.

I started with CrowdSourcing Opportunity: When and Where did John Louis Powell Die?
I created a file based on the 5 items, in Red, in his blog and wanted to determine if I could find the answer to his question. Very quickly, the CrowdSourcing team (his readers) found the answer. I always remind myself, that not everything in online. And that was certainly the case on that question.

But I had started my normal research pattern to try to construct the "family" based on that data, looking at Census Records and the use of the Find-A-Grave website. I have blogged about that recently.

But, here is an update: probably the last, because I have pretty well accomplished what I wanted to do and have found some great examples for my presentation.

First an updated view of the Ancestry Member Tree Hints:

The tree has grown to 269 people and have 58 of them with hints (Shaky Leaf).

I am not planning on following all of those hints. If this were my file, still to many.

But, what does FTM2014 tell me about this file.

The same 269 people, 97 Marriages, 7 Generations and 74 Surnames.

How did I get there?

I have looked at over 150 records. Some have been reports from FTM2014, like timelines for people, The Map feature (not counted in the 150 records). But, I have found 29 US Federal Census Records to help fill out these family units and 65 Find-A-Grave Memorial Pages. The two records have complimented each other about 98% of the time. Those names, dates, places, and relationships have been found in other sets of "records".

It has worked both ways. Finding a Census Record helped with locating a Find-A-Grave Memorial and the Find-A-Grave Memorials helped locate Census Records.

As you can see, I have used 57 SOURCES, all are using the Template Feature of FTM2014. The pay off for that was a Genealogy Report that I handed off to Randy, with very clean (for me) set of EndNotes. What would have taken 10 - 12 pages in the past was 3 or 4 pages. Mostly due to the way FTM2014 handles the EndNotes.

Along the way, it was obvious that a couple of the Contributors to Find-A-Grave were related to the person on the Memorial Page. I think that I have identified 3 "cousins" for Randy's friend John, if he is interested in making those contacts.

What is not on this list above, is that I have 202 items on my ToDo List. Things like Find-A-Grave memorials that are there, but I have chosen not to follow up with them right now. Mostly they are NOT direct Line people.

One of my earlier blog posts was about being distracted. I have worked very hard at not doing that. One reason for those ToDo lists for Find-A-Grave. BUT, I am and will work a little more on the Direct Line Hints. I have 41 Direct Line People, direct from John, and I have identified 27 hints to follow on those 41 people.

Bottom Line here, for me, I think the file is relatively clean, about 6 of the 119 Place Names are "on the map", using the Place Name Authority in FTM2014, all 57 Sources are using Templates, and I have NO facts without at least one Citation.

What the 113 Citations doesn't mention, is how many FACTs are linked to those Citations.

Also picked up 141 media files, such as Census Images, Headstone Images (can not see them Online as they are marked Private in FTM2014 to avoid copyright issues), several obituaries, Research Logs on every one, with notes on all Residence Facts (who what in the household in that Census year, but head of household), and data from the Find-A-Grave website.

Where to get Help

A Blog is not a very helpful place to troubleshoot a problem with Family Tree Maker. There is plenty of help, in the Help Menu of the program that is specific to where you are in the program; In the Help Menu, there is a link to the Knowledge Base website, called Online Help Center.